Report: Alabama to hire Applewhite as analyst

Major Applewhite, fired as Houston's head coach after last season, will join the Alabama staff as an analyst, AL.com reported Tuesday night.

It will be Applewhite's second stint in Tuscaloosa, as he served as Nick Saban's first offensive coordinator/quarterbacks coach at Alabama in 2007.

Applewhite, 40, left Alabama for his alma mater, Texas, where he was an assistant head coach/running backs coach from 2008-10 and then co-offensive coordinator from 2011-13.

He next landed at Houston, first as the offensive coordinator/quarterbacks coach in 2015 and '16 before taking over as head coach for a loss in the Las Vegas Bowl in December 2016.

In two seasons plus one game in charge of the Cougars, Applewhite produced a 15-11 record. His teams lost all three bowl games, including a 70-14 defeat against Army last December that ended Houston's 8-4 season.

Applewhite lost his job a week after the blowout loss, though Houston reportedly owed him a nearly $2 million buyout.

Applewhite was a record-setting quarterback for Texas from 1998-2001.

Saban recently added another big-name analyst to his staff, bringing in Mike Stoops. The former Arizona head coach was the defensive coordinator at Oklahoma for six-plus seasons before he was fired in October.